The Canadian Trucking Research Institute (CTRI) of the Canadian Trucking Association (CTA) has an interest in the development and testing of skills of truck drivers. Traditional training and testing methods are no longer sufficient and appropriate, as these cannot deal with difficult and atypical situations at will on a practical basis. For this reason the CTRI wanted to determine whether or not truck driver training devices simular to those used for the training of aircraft pilots exist and, if not, what resources would be required to develop them. Two studies were conducted during the period 1990 to 1992. The first examined the availability of truck driver training devices and drew up a list of criteria which an ideal training device should satisfy. The second study tested an existing device and concluded that no affordable and effective devices exist and that the task of developing a device capable of meeting the above criteria appear to be formidable. The objective of this study, therefore, is to do a study on the feasibility of developing a training and evaluation device for professional drivers. This study will focus on the technical, marketing and financial side of an R & D project. This document reports on the finding of this new study. The study reexamines the criteria referred to above and draws up another set of more basic requirement, reassesses the devices available today, carries out a brief market survey, explores the technical feasibility of developing new devices, examines the cost of developing and marketing them, looks at government sources of funding and examines the legal implications of such developments. The report closes with a number of conclusions, suggestions and an implementation structure.
Samenvatting